Volunteers join paper trail hunt
HuttNews | Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Back to the source: Terry Stock, secretary of the Hutt Valley branch of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists, checks a photocopied document against entries in the original register, watched by the council's chief archivist, Jennie Henton.
About a dozen members of the society's local branch have volunteered their services to help get the last batch of cemetery records on line. But the job is not solely a matter of transcription, says Terry. Some names and details are obscured or in some other way require checking. He says the online deaths register and Evening Post death and funeral notices are useful for this purpose.
About 20,000 entries must be put into the council's electronic database - a seemingly daunting task, but not when divvied out among the volunteers. "We just take it one meal at a time," he says.
Terry says the work is proof of the society's belief in the value of making the material available to the public. The online service is primarily about modernising information management, but the spinoff is easier access for people outside the region who want to research family histories.
The society is holding a research day on March 31 [2012] at the Petone library to introduce people to the resources available for family history research.
The council-managed Garden of Remembrance in Wainuiomata is already on line, as is the Lawn Cemetery in Taita, leaving only the old section of the Taita burial ground to go electronic.
Corporate information manager Chris Gousmett says that, for the sake of completeness, the council is adding about 1500 names to its database from nine non-council cemeteries. They are St James churchyard, Lower Hutt; Christ Church Taita churchyard, the Bridge Street Wesleyan Cemetery, Lower Hutt; Korokoro Cemetery; Knox Presbyterian churchyard, Lower Hutt; Homedale Methodist Cemetery and Sinclair Cemetery, both in Wainuiomata; and two Maori urupa in Te Puni and Seaview.
The council's cemetery registers are among 80,000 records held in temperature and humidity-controlled storage. Council archivist Jennie Henton says the archives will have to accommodate another 10,000 records as the council begins to clear out its administration building in advance of earthquake-strengthening work.
The online cemetery service is part of the council's Smarter City programme, which aims to provide more services on line, among them payment of dog registrations, bookings and property searches.
To access the cemeteries search tool, go to cemeteries.huttcity.govt.nz.
